Author's Notes: This one's fun. I dare you...DARE you not to giggle. Go ahead. Try. Much love to Zara Zee for keeping me on this side of the sane line and having as much fun with this chapter as I did. Thank you also to everyone who has sent me a review. I love them all and have collected them in a pretty pink ribbon.
Disclaimer: Be on the lookout for two escaped prisoners. They are believe to be armed and dangerous and have been reported heading towards the Canadian line. If you spot them, do not approach. Call me immediately and I'll come collect them and take them back home. I'll have to be sure the restraints are tighter next time.
Moderator Note: Some things don't change.
"Alright, thanks Bobby." Dean kept one hand on the wheel and one eye on Sam who was collecting information regarding a possible case. "Yea, I'll tell him. We'll call you when we know more." With that Sam disconnected the call and finished writing down the address.
"Tell me what?"
"There's a package at the house for you." Sam reached between his legs and pulled his laptop off the floor.
"Really?" Without looking, Sam could hear the smile in Dean's voice; never a good sign. "Maybe it's the newest Casa Erotica that I ordered." When he didn't get a reaction of any kind, Dean tried again. "What? A guy's got needs." At this comment he did finally get a snort of laughter from Sam.
"Preachin' to the choir a bit, aren't you?"
"Oh? Soulless boy's got needs too?" Dean feigned ignorance. Sam didn't look up from the laptop, but shook his head and exhaled a nearly frustrated sigh while he continued to run his searches online.
"Of course I do, Dean." He plastered a false smirk on his face and added, "I'm just better at hiding it than you are."
Dean bit the inside of his cheek as he quickly decided the best direction to take his next comment. What would get the biggest reaction? In the name of science, of course.
"Contrary to popular belief," he started, "you're not all that good at hiding it." This time Sam stopped typing altogether to give Dean his complete attention. "Motel walls are very thin, Sam, and a shower only covers up so much noise."
"Dude," Sam growled in distaste.
Best reaction of the day! Dean was starting to enjoy the challenge that Soulless Sam was providing "Sorry, Sam. Just being honest," he laughed openly. "So, what did Bobby have for us?"
"A Holiday Inn near Harrisburg. Some hunter friend of Bobby's called, said his nephew, who's the manager there, is having problems with a poltergeist. Normally this hunter would take care of it himself, but he's out on the West coast 'til Monday and his nephew is concerned that this poltergeist might cause problems with a group he has coming in this weekend for a convention. Bobby thought maybe we could check it out."
"Convention? This isn't one of those Supernatural conventions of Chuck's is it? Whatever happened to that guy, anyway? I haven't talked to him in over a year. Ya think you know a guy and then he up and vanishes into thin air."
The Impala pulled into the drive of the Holiday Inn beneath a large banner that read, 'Welcome to the 27th Annual MACA Convention!' Both hunters paused to look up through the windshield to read it.
"MACA?" Sam asked. Dean shrugged in equal ignorance. He drove the car around to the side parking lot and positioned her between two nondescript, white panel vans. The men clambered out, legs stiff from the all night drive and rounded to the trunk for a quick weapons check and exchange before heading inside.
"What's with all the friggin' balloons?" Dean asked upon entering the lobby which was saturated in latex. Bright, colorful orbs floated near the ceiling, while designs of every size, color & shape were littered around the large room. Making the scene even more peculiar was the trio of jugglers that wandered off of an elevator, easily passing knives back and forth between them. Dean and Sam passed a wide-eyed look between each other, but neither opened their mouth to say a word, afraid of what might come out.
"Hi there! Welcome to the Holiday Inn Hotel and Conference Center." An overly cheery man in a management blazer appeared from behind the front desk. He strode purposefully across to meet them at the front door, extending a hand and a broad smile in front of him as he came. But no sooner was he within reach, then the smile dropped from his face and his eyes flashed pure anxiety.
"Please, for the love of God, tell me that you're the guys my uncle sent," he whispered harshly. Dean couldn't help but lean back as the man stepped into his personal space. He looked quickly to Sam, who, under normal circumstances would be the one to come forward to sooth and reassure; of course that was before. Now, Sam stood stone still except for his eyes, which bounced between the manager and the oddities throughout the room. So Dean had to take the reins.
"Dean Winchester," he introduced himself and then indicated towards his brother, "this is Sam."
"Randy Moore," the manager said, again trying to offer his hand, but Dean shook it off with a humorous grin.
"Is that really your name? Randy Moore?" he chuckled and out of the corner of his eye, caught the questioning tilt of Sam's head angled towards him. He turned to Sam and whispered, "Sounds like a porn name."
At the unimpressed look he received from Sam, he quickly cleared his throat to gain his composure. "So Randy, let's walk."
Randy turned to direct them down a long hallway towards the Conference Center, but in doing so had to pass through the three person juggling act. Sam's eyes remained glued to one of the jugglers so that as he walked passed, Sam's head turned until his shoulders and then hips were forced to follow his eye line and he was then walking backwards beside Dean.
Dean watched Sam closely. "You alright?" he asked quietly.
"Fine," was Sam's stiff-lipped reply.
"So, what's going on here, Randy? It looks like the circus has come to town."
"It has. It's the big MACA Convention."
"What's the MACA?" Sam asked cautiously, doubting that he really wanted to know the answer.
"MACA. The Mid Atlantic Clown Association?" Sam nearly fell face first when his feet stopped short quickly and his body kept going forward. Randy apparently hadn't noticed as he continued to walk down the corridor giving details of the large annual convention. Dean, however had noticed Sam's abrupt halt. He smiled knowingly and turned to check out Sam's current mental state, finally grabbing the young hunter around the elbow and pulling him forward down the hall after their guide.
They came to a stop outside a large set of double doors. Randy pulled a ring of keys from his pocket and unlocked the spacious meeting room, spreading the doors wide and flipping a hand across the panel of light switches. As the lights blinked on, the men were confronted by a twelve foot tall pyramid of precariously stacked round banquet tables, arranged dead center in the room and swaying slightly at the top.
Dean's lips twitched in amusement.
"At least it's going with the classics."
Neither Randy nor Sam saw anything funny in the situation, both leveling serious looks at Dean.
"I bet the clowns would be impressed," Dean defended.
"This is actually better than I'd hoped for," Randy stated frankly, "at least it's neat. Yesterday the damn thing completely trashed the room."
Dean raised an eyebrow, but didn't lose his amused expression.
"Look, I get it. It's kind of funny…under normal circumstances. But these aren't normal circumstances. I've got two hundred plus guests staying here for this convention and more showing up today for the remainder of the weekend. I can't afford to have something seriously bad happen while they're here. My uncle assured me that you guys were the best and so I'm trusting you to handle this with professionalism and extreme prejudice."
"Of course," Sam said seriously. Dean straightened, mirroring his brother's stiff back and proficient demeanor. "What can you tell us?"
"They were in the middle of a balloon competition last night near the pool when things turned ugly. Well, let's just say 'thank God for the balloons' cause I'd have a hard time explaining to the police how fifty clowns drowned simultaneously." Dean physically struggled to hold his comical reaction at bay, going as far as to suck his lower lip in and bite down hard to keep his laughter from erupting. Randy caught the look all the same.
"Oh, it gets better," he said. "Later last night during the puppet workshop the lady's entire collection of hand puppets jumped up on top of the head table and erupted into a Can-Can line. Honesty, I really don't care what you do, just get it out of here and quickly. We've pushed this morning's events back 'til this evening, but they have a professional photographer coming in at noon, that they can't reschedule."
"Any idea of what we're looking for? Anyone ever die here?" Sam had already moved to the perimeter of the room, searching for clues.
Randy rolled this around for a moment. "No, not really. We had an employee, Edward Gable that retired about a month ago." Sam shook his head, not finding the information useful, but Randy wasn't quite finished. "He retired and then two days later he 'retired'. Old coot lived for this place. His wife said it was all he ever talked about. She thought maybe he'd lost the will to live after he retired."
"Wow and I thought I was tied to my job." Dean thought out loud. "Hmm, this doesn't really scream poltergeist to me, more like a ghost that's really quickly picked up on how to control its environment."
"What makes you say that? He's tearing the place up and putting the guests in danger." Randy asked.
"Ghosts don't always get things right' it's probably just confused. If it is Ed, then he's left himself here on purpose; you just said he lived for this place. So Ed the friendly ghost gets to come to work and do what he loves to do, everyday, for the rest of his unlife."
"It's not all that uncommon. We've just got to find the thing that's binding him here," Sam added.
"There's got to be a connection somewhere, right?" Dean's question was aimed more at Sam than Randy. Sam nodded from across the room. Dean turned back to Randy, "Alright, so do you happen to know where Ed was buried?"
"Mrs. Gable had him cremated."
"Of course," Dean glowered. "How 'bout something he left behind?"
"No, not that I can think of. I'm sorry. I know you need something more to go on and if I think of anything, I'll be sure to let you know, but I need to be heading back to the front. You guys have an hour to do what you can." And with that Randy was out the door.
"An hour? Well, crap, now what?" Dean threw his hands into the air in frustration, letting them fall and slap noisily against his thighs.
"There's gotta be something around here, Dean. We'll just have to spread out and start looking."
"Okay. Meet back here in half an hour?" Sam nodded in agreement. Dean turned to leave the room and stopped quickly, turning back to throw a look at his brother. "Hey, Sam?"
"Yea?"
"Keep your eyes peeled for killer clowns." Before something sharp could be thrown at him, Dean disappeared out the door. If he'd stayed just a moment longer he would have caught the look of complete panic in Sam's eyes and a knife to the gut would have been worth it.
"Anything?" Sam asked as he skated around the corner. Dean was standing in the doorway looking in, his head tilted to the side in wonder. Sam stepped up beside him, his eyebrows reaching skyward. There in the meeting room, the pyramid of tables still stood. Only now they had all been completely upended, each table sitting upside down on the legs of the table beneath it; an upside down pyramid that balance precariously on the top of one lone table.
"How the Hell do you suppose that stays standing?" Dean puzzled. As if on command, there was a shift in the structure and inch by inch it leaned sideways, collapsing in on itself with a thunderous sound.
"You had to ask." Sam deadpanned, turning to look at this brother. "Hey, what's that?" He crossed in front of Dean to a frame hanging on the wall beside the open doorway. Mounted behind the glass was a shining gold plaque etched with the words: The Edward Gable Meeting Room and above it, stretched tightly in the frame was a uniform shirt bearing a pristine name tag on its left chest that read, Ed.
"You've got to be kidding me! How the Hell did we miss that?" Dean growled. He stomped over to the frame and pulled slightly at it only to find that it was securely fastened to the wall. Sam, however, wasted no time in putting his right elbow through the glass, pulling the shirt free, much to Dean's chagrin.
"Come on, I think I saw a metal waste basket in the room." Sam reached into his jacket and pulled out a flask and a small can of lighter fluid. He dropped the shirt into the bottom of the can and spread the salt and lighter fluid over it heavily and then Dean followed suit, dropping a lit match in as well.
"Is that it?" The two hunters jumped at the unexpected voice of Randy directly them. "Is it done? No more problems?"
"We think so." Dean assured, trying to sound more confident than he felt.
"Good, cuz the photographer's here and he's ready to start setting up the group shot."
"Group…shot?" Sam asked warily.
It was at that moment that a low rumble of feet traveled down the carpeted hallway.
"What the…?' Dean muttered.
Sam's eyes widened as he suddenly found the incarnation of most of his childhood nightmares surging purposefully towards him. Over two hundred garishly face-painted, curly red wig wearing, big shoed clowns were thundering as one unit down the corridor to the meeting room; and Sam was right in their path.
Dean's eyes lit up in unadulterated glee, but only for a second, because a moment later he saw Sam sway ever so slightly. Dean quickly reached out to support his wavering brother, but found the man had gone rigid. One second Sam stood ready to fight to the death against the oncoming horde, the next he was prone on the floor, unconscious in a cold sweat.
"Sam! Shit!"Dean dropped down to all fours, hovering cautiously over his brother. "Hey," he called softly, tapping Sam lightly against the cheek. "Sammy, wake up."
Randy leaned over the fallen man. "Is he alright?" he asked genuinely concerned.
Dean smirked up at him. "Yeah, he's fine. Just a…tiny fear of clowns." Dean inched his fingers together to demonstrate the 'tiny' and couldn't help but cough out a laugh. "Help me get him out of here. You don't want him to wake up in here. Try explaining two hundred clowns dying simultaneously to the police."
Dean shut the car door quietly on his still woozy brother. Together he and Randy had managed to get him out of the room and out the front door before Sam began to come around. A gal from the front desk had been nice enough to bring Sam a bottle of water and Randy had offered to comp a room for the two hunters. Sam was quick to declare his absolute opposition on staying one more minute in a hotel full of white faced demons and with a grin, Dean quietly turned Randy's offer down.
Now that Sam was settled into the car, Dean walked around car and unloaded their weapons into the trunk. He pulled his journal out of the trunk and his phone free from his pocket and hit the speed dial. While he waited for the call to connect he scribbled into the journal. Moderator Note: Some things don't change.
"Hey Bobby. Yea, we got it handled." The permanent smile on his face spreading wider by the second, wiping years off his features and his heart. "So, guess who's still afraid of clowns?"
So what did happen to Chuck/God? Are we ever gonna see him again? hmmm. Curse you Eric Kripke for torturing us poor, defenseless fangirls/boys. First you steal Dean's necklace never to return it again, then you give us a peep show of God only to rip him away from us. Curse you! :D
